Delmonico stared at the photocopy of a business card. Sat in the library and stared at the black and white piece of paper. Boldly it proclaimed: Winchester Brothers. Saving People and Hunting Things. A family business since 1983. A pair of phone numbers. One of them matched what she'd gotten from the GhostFacers months ago.
This was impossible. Impossible.
Monsters weren't real. It was folklore, complete fiction, stories people made up to entertain and inspire and explain. And if monsters weren't real, then monster hunters wouldn't be real either.
And yet. Here she sat, staring at a copy of a business card given to a little girl by her rescuer. A man who's face matched his FBI Most Wanted mug shot. A man who's brother had sat in the Special Archives section of her university researching a long dead man the day before people stopped going missing. A man who'd gotten his ass kicked by Tinkerbell.
Impossible. Right?
Delmonico sighed. It was impossible before things started happening in her office. First it was little things, her papers weren't where she thought they should be or the books on her shelves got reorganized. Then whoppie cushions started appearing on her office chair when she walked to her bookshelf and back with no one else in the room. Followed by silly string in the face when she looked up from grading papers, also in an empty room. The last straw was watching a stink bomb float in mid-air before it smacked into her desk, shattering and living up to its name.
She made the call.
Sam answered.
Delmonico found herself oddly tongue-tied. "Hello. Umm... I got your number from... well, I was there when you and your brother stopped the... the Thirsty... in New Mexico. You said if we ever ran into anything again, we could call you and you would come gank it?"
As long as she didn't ask to interview them again, hopefully they'd at least hear her out.
.o0o.
Now, the brothers stood in her office guns pointed at the corner.
"Sammy, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Dean demanded, eyes wide in surprise and staring at empty space.
Sam flicked his eyes to his brother, checking if they were indeed staring in the same direction. "Probably," he answered, voice tight.
"Doc, you got a PhD in weird crap, right?" Dean's gun hand held steady as he refused to look away from whatever the problem was.
"Mythology and Folklore, yes," Delmonico agreed, still trying to see what they obviously saw.
"Okay, good. Help me out here, because I'm coming up blank." Dean tightened hos grip on his weapon, clearly not happy with not knowing. "Have you ever come across something fluffy and pink with an elephant nose and a raccoon tail?"
If it hadn't been for the expression on his face, she would have thought he was joking. "Uhh, Mr. Bing Bong from Inside Out? I watched that movie with my niece a few days ago."
The answer was strange enough that both brothers turned their heads to stare at the professor. Because apparently that was the weirdest thing they'd ever heard. Then their heads snapped back to the empty corner.
"Of course we can see you!" Dean snapped angrily. "You're standing right there, not even hiding. Why wouldn't we see you?"
Suddenly, Sam laughed. "Dude, its a Zanna!"
The name sounded vaguely familiar to Delmonico, something Romanian maybe...
"What? No, Zanna are harmless. Why would-?" Dean cut himself off, acting like the empty space was saying something. All she could hear was silence.
Sam lowered his gun. "Professor, you're not being haunted by a ghost. You're being haunted by the real Riley's imaginary friend."
All Delmonico could do was blink in disbelief.
"So, Zanna. See, not all imaginary friends are actually imaginary. These guys attached themselves to kids who need a friend. This one had a kid who grew up enough to work for Disney." Dean explained.
They were crazy, Delmonico decided. Bewildered and upset, she cried, "Why would a Romanian fairy be haunting my office?"
"Doc, has a point," Dean turned to the empty space. "What the hell, dude? What's with the Peeves the Poltergeist routine?" To Sam he added, "See? I read stuff that's not porn."
From the outside, it looked like it looked like both men were listening intently to something. After a minute, Dean reached down to scoop something off the ground. Then he pantomimed unwrapping something and popping it into his mouth.
Sam stared at him, incredulous.
"What? Its free and I'm hungry," Dean told him defensively. "He's crying candy, Sam. It's like a pinata I don't have to beat open with a bat."
"You are eating Zanna tears, Dean," Sam felt compelled to point out.
Delmonico gaped. The thing that's been haunting and pranking her office, making it impossible to get any decent work done and freaking her out, was now reduced to tears? Was that a reaction to the Winchesters, she wondered. Except, the crying didn't seem to start until after they put their guns away. What was going on?
Dean pantomimed unwrapping another piece. While chewing it noisily he added, "I wonder what he poops."
"God." Sam pinched the bridge of his nose like he had a sudden migraine.
Then they both looked at the empty space again.
"Okay, okay, we get it. The professor over here can be a bitch," Dean gestured at Delmonico. "But seriously dude... or giant pink elephant thing. Whatever. You've made your point."
A pause. Sam's eyebrow's rose. Dean sighed.
"Because we have a Zanna killing knife at home and I am not afraid to use it." Dean announced.
Both men leaned slightly to the left and looked down.
Sam huffed. "Huh. I guess you got your answer, Dean."
Dean shifted back upright. "You poop stuffed animals? Really?" A pause and held up his hands. "Hey, I don't judge. You should've sen the log I dropped after a bowl of corn chowder..."
"Dude!" Sam snapped. "Nobody wants to hear that!"
Dean just grinned, unrepentant.
"Mr. Bing Bong, would you please become visible to Leah? And tell her what she did wrong so she can apologize and try to help you fix it?" Sam asked, fixing the corner with a big-eyed look.
The empty space in the corner resolved into a life-sized Disney character.
Delmonico shrieked.
Dean stuck a finger in his ear with an annoyed wince.
"Oh my god, oh my god..." she panted. "This can't be real! Monsters aren't real! Its folklore. Mythology. NOT. REAL."
"See?!" Mr. Big Bong demanded. "She's still doing it! How dare you! How dare you tell poor little Audry that I'm not real? She knows you're a smart professor, and she believes you when you tell her things."
Delmonico spluttered. "I just said that I wasn't a psychology professor!"
Mr. Bing Bong harrumphed. "She's smart, Audry is. Too smart for her classmates to understand her. She knew that when you said that, you meant you didn't think I was real. That meant no one would understand her, not even her favorite aunt." Wrapped candy began to fall out of the ridiculously large eyes as the Zanna sniffled. "She needs real people, friends who won't be scared off by how smart she is."
Out of the corner of her eye, Delmonico saw Sam stop Dean from reaching for more candy off the floor. The aborted action was followed by a small glaring contest ending with Dean rolling his eyes and conceding the point.
"You made her cry," Mr. Bing Bong finished.
Sam stepped forward. "So, how about this: Leah goes with you to talk to Audry right now. You both explain to her what a Zanna is and how sorry Leah is for the misunderstanding. Will that work? Then you stop the harassment."
Dean took the opportunity to pick something up off the floor; but it wasn't the newly visible candy. With a tissue to cover his fingers, he sat a teddy bear on the corner of the desk. "And Scat here will remind you that some things are real."
"Scat?" Delmonico asked. "You named the bear for me?"
"Yeah, you know, animal poop. Scat." Dean smiled.
Sam rolled his eyes. "On that note, we should be going."
"Wait, will I see you again?" Delmonico demanded.
The brothers glanced at each other.
"You've got our numbers," Dean reminded her, holding up the business card photocopy. "You find a real problem that needs handling, call us. We'll come."
Sam smiled. "We've got your number, too. Who knows, I might need help with some research." Then he looked closer at the paper. "Dude, did you make up Hunter business cards? Why?"
"The place was running a special," Dean defended. "We got one more set with the purchase of the first three. And we already had FBI, state police, and Weekly World News. We give out our real numbers often enough, I figured I might as well."